April 27, 2020 — Tianna is a 37-year-old woman who owns her own construction company in Philadelphia that employs ten people. As the COVID-19 crisis began intensifying in Pennsylvania and Tianna’s business was ordered to close, Tianna struggled to figure out how she could keep paying her workers.

She learned about the Paycheck Protection Program passed by Congress as part of the CARES Act and immediately applied for loan relief for her business. She also applied for a loan advance from the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, also authorized by the CARES Act. She hasn’t heard back from either program, and wonders if it is because she checked the box saying she has a felony conviction record.

When non-essential businesses shut down, Baseemah, a 27-year-old woman who lives in Montgomery County and started her own cleaning business, lost most of her contracts, which are with retail stores. Based on the rules set forth by the Small Business Administration (SBA) for COVID-19 relief, her single felony drug conviction would make her ineligible for funding to keep her business afloat and to pay the people that work for her.

These are just two of the thousands of stories from small business owners across Pennsylvania who have lost their livelihoods due to the COVID-19 crisis and are struggling to support their workers.

A pandemic is not the time to create additional barriers to desperately needed aid, particularly to small businesses that are part of the fabric of communities across America.

From Philadelphia to Centre to Westmoreland counties, every corner of the state is facing economic devastation. For people with criminal records, the uphill climb for relief is even steeper. Even in a booming economy, people with records experience unemployment at five times the average rate.

Congress also recognized that a large, rapid infusion of financial aid would be necessary to keep these small businesses running during the pandemic.

To that end, the CARES Act authorized the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which makes government-backed business loans more widely available, expands the types of expenses that can be covered, and makes portions of the loans forgivable.

The unwarranted restrictions placed on this emergency relief will hobble small businesses and nonprofits across the state, and exact a particularly heavy toll on minority business owners and employees, who are often disproportionately affected by the criminal legal system.

Fortunately, Congress and the SBA still have the opportunity to get it right. Congress should explicitly remove all restrictions on eligibility for emergency small business relief based on arrest and conviction records.

The SBA should roll back the over-broad restrictions it has placed on access to these funds to at least the regular restrictions that guide their preexisting loan programs, if not further.